The CHIDESIGN competition, sponsored by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF), challenged contestants to create “an imagined learning campus in downtown Chicago called the Chicago Architecture, Design + Education Center (CADE).”

The Legat/Judson/BuroHappold team’s concept, titled “An Architecture of Growth,” responds to a question that arose during design charrettes: how can the built environment embody an architecture that emulates, supports, and inspires growth?

CHIDESIGN – Explorations – Image

CHIDESIGN – Explorations – Open Content

explorations

View other unbuilt concepts, research projects, and competition entries in Legat’s portfolio.

Through the Eras

A curvilinear element composed of renewable wood twists through the facility and represents ideas about the different eras of architecture.

Past

On lower levels, the form weaves through the past, represented by concrete and Chicago’s strata.

Present

The use of scaffolding expresses the present era, located on the middle levels.

Future

The wood element bursts through the roof, where it creates a sculpture form that points to the future of architecture.

Timeline

For three weeks, the Legat team mentored four Judson University students, who gathered concepts and conducted studies. After several design charrettes, the Legat team (led by Judson grads) took over, refined the form, and created the final drawings for the submission.